Asus Strix R9 390X

By
Ben Radding20 Feb 2016, 5:43 a.m.

The $399.99 Asus Strix R9 390X is an AMD 300-series graphics card that's been tweaked from the original 2013 Radeon R9 390X, this time with high clock speeds and more memory. If you overclock it, it rivals Nvidia's GeForce GTX 980 on performance, but it's very power hungry, and it's not quite powerful enough for 4K gaming.

The Asus Strix R9 390X has a base core clock of 1,070MHz, and 8GB of GDDR5 memory running—2GB more than Nvidia's base level card—on a 512-bit bus. It is cooled by Asus' DirectCU III cooler, which has three wing-blade fans, 10mm heatpipes, and a metal back plate. There are also two LED lights atop the two PCI Express power connectors, which light up red when the cables aren't plugged in, and white when they are. The Strix R9 390X is slightly larger than the 10.5-inch stock GeForce GTX 980, at 11.7 inches long and 1.5 inches thick.

In the lab, the Strix R9 390X could be overclocked to 1,120MHz and performed admirably, besting the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 and the Zotac GTX 970 on several tests. It's a great graphics card for 1440p gaming, but it can't really delive playable frames rates on 4K screens despite the ample RAM.

Since the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 only costs a little more than the Asus Strix R9 390X ($489 and $469, respectively) and delivers stellar overclocked performance, we recommend the GeForce GTX 980 for most gamers looking to play games in 4K.

About the Author

Raised in the Midwest, Ben considers himself a generally nice guy. He went to NYU to study journalism and comparative literature, and went on to captain the NYU Fencing Team. Sabre, since you asked. He came to PCMag after a stint at Men's Fitness magazine, where he tried to get totally jacked. He didn't. But he did find some time to review plenty of fitness trackers, tablets, and other cool gadgets. Outside of the office, you can find him at the last seat at the bar, where he'll be commenting anonymously on an Indianapolis Colts blog. See Full Bio